How You Saved Me
by hpforever01
Summary: Hermione writes Ron a letter the night before their wedding, reminding him of exactly why she chose him and not Harry. Oneshot.


**How You Saved Me**

The first time you saved me was in first year. It was your fault that I needed saving at all, of course, but I prefer to ignore that bit of the story. Somehow your silly little insults don't seem very important compared to the fact that you burst in and rescued me from a mountain troll. I know Harry helped too, but it was you I felt the most gratitude towards. I had a bit of a crush on you, you see. That's why it hurt so much to hear you making fun of me. If it had been anyone else, I don't think I'd have been quite so upset. And that's why I'd have gladly faced a thousand mountain trolls if it meant I could be rescued by you. Pathetic, wasn't I?

The second time you saved me was a year later. It was the first time Malfoy called me a mudblood - do you remember? I didn't actually know what it meant at that point, but the way Malfoy said it was enough. I knew he was calling me inferior and worthless. I was pretty insecure at that point. I'd spent the last year pouring all my effort into my schoolwork to try and prove that I was good enough, and there was Malfoy, telling me it had all been a waste of time. Telling me that, no matter how hard I tried, I would always be marked out as inferior. And some silly little part of me was scared that, whatever 'mudblood' meant, it was something that would make you and Harry realise you didn't want to be friends with me anymore. Which was ridiculous, of course, but like I said, I was rather insecure.

You very quickly banished that notion from my mind. The way you stepped up to defend me instantly, without even thinking about it, was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me. Of course your wand backfired and you were left throwing up slugs, but that didn't make the action any less noble. And even though those slugs must have been awful, you didn't once blame me for it. I think that's when I realised that you and Harry were going to stick with me no matter what. It was also when I fell in love with you. To twelve-year-old me you were the most amazing thing in the world. I was easily as infatuated with you as Ginny was with Harry, though I hid it a little better. The fact that you still behaved like an insensitive prat most of the time helped with that, I think.

By third year I was a lot more confident. That was also when we had our first big fight. That was quite a difficult time for me. I think if it had happened a year earlier I'd have fallen apart. I'd have thought that I'd completely messed up and that our friendship was over forever. As it was, I just had to keep telling myself that our friendship went deeper than pets and broomsticks, and that it would sort itself out in the end.

It did, of course. Just as I didn't think I could cope a single day more, the final straw arrived. After all the time and effort I'd poured into research for Buckbeak's trial, I received a letter from Hagrid saying that he was going to be executed anyway. I really didn't think I could keep going after that. But then I went to you and Harry. You didn't actually apologise, but what you did was better. You told me that I didn't have to manage on my own anymore. You told me you'd help, and you did. It was only a little bit of research, but for me it represented so much more than that. It meant that, no matter how much we fought, I would always be able depend on you. I'd spent years believing I had to be completely self-reliant and cope with everything on my own, but now you were telling me it was okay to accept help from others. Aged thirteen, I'm sure you had no idea exactly what your words meant to me (in fact it would probably have scared you a bit if you had known) but right then they were exactly what I needed to hear. That was the third time you saved me.

The fourth time you saved me wasn't quite so obvious. I'm sure you remember that fourth year was when I met Viktor Krum. He swept me off my feet a bit, and I don't regret agreeing to go to the Yule Ball with him. I'm sure you would disagree with me, but I think it was an important turning point for me. Being friends with two guys was always a bit difficult. I'm hardly the most girly of girls, but even for me it was hard being treated like one of the guys the whole time. I love you and Harry - you know I do - but Viktor made me feel attractive for the first time. Watching everyone's faces when I walked past with him was priceless.

Viktor was a very intense person, as well as being a few years older than me. He wanted a serious relationship, and although he didn't push me, I knew he wanted the two of us to make a real commitment. For a while, I was genuinely tempted. With half the school swooning over him, the fact that he had chosen _me _- plain, bookish Hermione Granger - was incredibly flattering. At one point I managed to convince myself that I was really falling in love with him, and that my crush on you had been a mere schoolgirl infatuation. That was a load of rubbish, of course - I was no more in love with Viktor than I was with Neville or Harry - but for a little while I really believed it.

I'm not sure exactly what changed my mind, but I know it was something you said or did. I realised that what I felt for Viktor was nothing like what I felt for you and, much as I'd enjoyed going to the Ball with him, I still wished that you'd thought to ask me first.

Anyway, you saved me from making a commitment I'd almost definitely have regretted later. Instead I told Viktor we should just be friends, and for a couple of years we wrote to each other. We still keep in touch today, though not regularly (please try not to get jealous, we really are just friends now - he's got a girlfriend and they just got engaged) and I like it better like that. We were never meant to date, nice as he is, and I'm glad you saved me from that.

You must have saved me hundreds of times in fifth year. Poor Harry was having a really bad year, wasn't he? With a his scar hurting, and all those awful dreams, and everyone thinking he was mad. He needed us that year, more than he ever had before. I knew that, and I knew it was our responsibility to be there for him. It was just so _hard _though! He was so irritable, and he kept taking everything out on us. He wouldn't let us help him, either. Didn't tell us about what Umbridge was making him do in detention, and wouldn't explain to us about why the Occlumency lessons were stopped.

I'd never have managed that year without you. If I'd had to try and support and put up with Harry all on my own, I'm not sure what I'd have done. We may have fought a bit that year - I can't really remember - but I know that when Harry was being most difficult you were there to help me cope with it. I can't tell you how important that was for me.

Sixth year was both one of the best and worst years of my life. It was great that the Ministry finally believed us, but at the same time it was kind of scary. Of course we'd _known _Voldemort was back, but once the Ministry actually acknowledged it, it started to feel more real somehow. Plus Harry was learning all that stuff from Dumbledore about Voldemort and the horcruxes and stuff, and that was kind of overwhelming because Harry was supposed to somehow defeat this seemingly invincible wizard, and we were the ones who were supposed to help him. It seemed like an impossible task.

But I'm ashamed to admit that when I think back over sixth year, the one thing that instantly comes to mind isn't anything to do with Harry or Voldemort or saving the world, or even Dumbledore's death. Sixth year was the year you dated Lavender Brown.

At the time, that seemed like the most awful thing that could possibly happen. Sixteen-year-old me was heartbroken. If I'd thought calmly and logically about it, I'd have realised that just because you had a girlfriend didn't mean the two of you would end up married or anything like that. I'd also have realised that the kind of attraction between you and Lavender wasn't something that would last more than a few months. In fact, I'd given Ginny exactly the same advice about Harry and Cho the previous year.

But I've never really been capable of being calm and logical when it comes to you. So I panicked and I tried to get revenge using McLaggen but that didn't really work, and then I tried to stay mad at you but somehow I couldn't.

I've never told you this before but something happened while you were unconscious after beng poisoned that gave me hope again. We were all sitting with you in the hospital wing, and you'd been muttering a bit in your sleep, but other than that you were completely out of it. The others were all discussing theories, but I hadn't spoken yet - I'd been too busy watching you. And then I joined in the conversation - I can't remember what it was I actually said, it's not really important - and you were still unconscious, but you said my name. You'd reacted to hearing my voice, and you said my name. Obviously I had to keep acting normal, but on the inside I was in absolute ecstasy. I don't think I'd have cared if you'd promptly woken up and gone off to start snogging Lavender, because it was _my _voice that you reacted to and it was _my _name that you said.

You can't imagine how thrilled I was when you started moaning about Lavender and wishing you could break up with her. Suddenly Lavender was the outsider again and it was me you were confiding in. It didn't even matter that you were still technically going out with her, because I knew there was no way it would last.

You broke my heart that year, but you also put it back together, and I think it was stronger for having been broken. Seeing you with Lavender had shown me just how strong my feelings for you were. No simple schoolgirl crush could have made the logical, rational Hermione Granger so jealous and irrational.

That year we went searching for horcruxes was truly awful. I guess the first thing that springs to mind about that year was the time when you left me, and it's certainly something I need to talk about. Not because I'm trying to make you guilty, or because I still blame you for it in any way, but simply because it needs to be dealt with. It was by far the worst argument I've been involved in, and it wasn't even me you were arguing with, it was Harry. But it was the worst because you left. We may have gone weeks without speaking to one another in the past, but you've always been there. I've always been able to see you at mealtimes and in class and in the Common Room, even if it was only to glare or pointedly ignore you. This time I had no idea where you were, or if you'd ever come back. I didn't think you'd be _able _to come back, cos you wouldn't be able to find us.

Do you want to know why I was so angry when you did come back? I wasn't even angry with you, really. I was angry with _me_. Because my very first reaction to seeing you was a wave of relief. I've always prided myself on being self-reliant and independent, but while you were gone I was proven wrong. I all but fell apart without you. I'm not sure I could have coped for much longer. I needed you - I still do need you - and it was incredibly hard for me to admit that to myself. I guess you just happened to be unfortunate enough to suffer the consequences of all that anger I was feeling. Sorry about that.

Anyway, the thing I remember best about that year isn't you leaving. It isn't even the final battle with Voldemort, though that is the kind of thing that sticks in your memory. No, the thing I remember best is the time that you saved me yet again, this time during what I could quite honestly say was the very worst experience of my life.

We'd been captured by the Snatchers and brought to Malfoy Manor. I'm sure you remember that all too well. The pain was ... I don't really have words to describe it. It was awful. I still have nightmares about that day sometimes. Nightmares about Bellatrix, and in the nightmares nobody comes to rescue me.

I've heard several times about how exactly I came to be rescued that day. I know that I owe my rescue to Harry, and to Aberforth, for sending Dobby, and of course to Dobby himself for paying with his life so that I could escape. But what most people don't realise is that there would have been very little left of me to rescue if it hadn't been for you.

I could hear you screaming, you see. While Harry was being calm and practical and making plans, you were being irrational and emotional and screaming for me. And perhaps we wouldn't have escaped if Harry had been behaving like you too. If he'd been yelling and screaming and not actually doing anything to help.

But it was your screaming that saved me. You can't possibly imagine how it feels to be tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange, and I'm glad you will never find out for yourself. All I can say is that I'm not surprised Neville's parents succumbed to insanity. I was so close to giving up myself. I could feel something slipping away from me. Whether it was my sanity or perhaps even my life I'm not sure, but I know that there wouldn't have been any of me left worth rescuing if I'd given up. And it was so tempting. You have no idea how tempting. To let go and slip away into a peaceful oblivion where the pain wouldn't reach me anymore.

But then I heard you screaming my name. Screaming as if my pain was agony to you. It wasn't like Harry with his obsession with rescuing everyone. You only cared about me, and I knew I had to hold on. I knew the physical pain was nothing in comparison to the pain of leaving you. In that moment you were my sole reason to keep going. You gave me the strength, not only to hold on, but even to lie to Bellatrix as she tortured me. And you are the reason that I was still there, alive and relatively unhurt, when Harry burst in to rescue me.

You've saved me countless times since then of course, though that was the most dramatic one. Every time the fame and attention that come with being a friend of Harry Potter get too much, you help bring me back down to earth. And every time I see some painful reminder of one of the many people we've lost, you act as a reminder of how much we still have to live for.

I guess you must wonder why I'm writing you this long and rambling letter the night before our wedding. The answer is that I know you too well to miss the doubt and insecurity that have been in your eyes over the last few months. I know you still compare yourself to Harry, and I know that some tiny part of you still thinks you're not good enough and that I'm going to choose him instead. Because he's the amazing hero, and who would look at you next to him? But although I love Harry, and although he truly is a hero, he's not _my _hero. Harry saved everyone, but you saved _me_. You are and always will be my hero. And that doesn't mean we'll always get on, and that we'll never argue. I'm sure we have a lot of shouting matches ahead of us, but that's okay. That's okay, because in the end we'll always remember why it is that we stay together.

You have saved me more times than I can count, Ron Weasley, and I look forward to you continuing to save me every single day for the rest of our lives.

See you tomorrow, Ron - I can't wait!

I love you.

Hermione


End file.
